I've heard a lot of low grade whining about how everything is already
taken in the area. There's some truth, and some error in that. But from
the GAME's long term viewpoint, there are a lot of problems with the IC
as the only starting place.

1. New players _DO_ see themselves as at a real disadvantage. And they
are, and starting where the development is heaviest exacerbates that.
Opening a new haven somewhere would help, but fairly rapidly create a
similar situation (new starts and restarts). Though it would at least
disperse the population some.
2. Not that I really expect this, but with ONE start point, and given
geography and current politics, the AOO controls the area, utterly. If
restarts are subject to continued political ill-will, you may see people
run down it they leave the haven--by land or sea. That would be within
AOO rights (it's no worse than some of the banditry several of them have
already taken part in), but it would cause people to decide to NOT
restart. Having multiple locations--even if all reasonably near the
original haven--would make that much harder.

Arg. I know I had other thoughts on the subject, but last night was
pretty bad, and I've lost them. I'll leave it at this for now.

On Fri, 21 Oct 1994, Rich Skrenta wrote:

> Many people have asked me to open more starting cities in G1.> What I'd really like to do is offer some alternate routes out of> the IC, such as one-way and/or one-use teleporation portals from> the IC to other cities elsewhere on the map.> > The only problem I see is that opening a newbie center in the> backyard of a former wilderness area which a long expedition by> players who started on turn 1 had just arrived at might not be fair.> > I suppose I could do some sort of survey of the area before I create> a port into the city, but any cities I choose will have this problem> to one degree or another.> > -- > Rich Skrenta <skrenta@pbm.com>>